Ms. Ambrose (Edmonton-Spruce Grove) has made only a few public appearances and announcements as Minister of Health since being appointed to the file in Mr. Harper’s (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) July Cabinet shuffle. Last week she met with her provincial and territorial counterparts in Toronto for the annual Health ministers conference, where she announced an end to the use of illicit drugs in treating drug addictions under Health Canada’s Special Access Program.
To date, her most notable speech was an Aug. 19 address to the Canadian Medical Association, in which she pledged her support for Canada’s publicly-funded health-care system and promised to engage with health-care providers, the provinces and territories.
“[O]ur government remains committed to a strong, publicly funded system guided by the Canada Health Act. I am, and have always been, a strong supporter of Canada’s publicly funded health-care system,” she told CMA members. “I believe that we have the fundamentals right—and we can work to improve it together. That is our policy challenge and one which I plan to lead in my tenure as Health minister—improving our system in a way that will maintain the integrity of our publicly funded system, but capture productivity gains so our system is sustainable.”
Ms. Ambrose also highlighted a number of priority health issues in her address, including domestic violence, aboriginal health, consumer safety, and health-care innovation. It was in stark contrast to her predecessor, current Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq (Nunavut), whose tenure as Health minister was described by one source as “defensive.” The new minister’s CMA address has already earned high praise from the stakeholders who were in attendance, and the medical community is hoping her appointment signals a more proactive approach to health policy on the part of the federal government.
CMA president Dr. Louis Francescutti told The Hill Times that his organization was “honoured” that the new minister chose to make her inaugural address as minister of Health at the CMA’s annual general council meeting.
“The tone was very refreshing, especially coming on the heels of previous Health ministers who never really said much,” he observed.
The Conservative government has been selective in its involvement in health care at the provincial and territorial level. Under Ms. Aglukkaq, Health Canada focused on consumer safety reforms, anti-smoking initiatives, and selective federal-provincial partnerships on policies aimed at addressing issues such as shortages of health-care practitioners in rural regions of Canada.
Rather than renew the Canada Health Accord brought in under former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin in 2004, Mr. Harper sent Finance Minister Jim Flaherty (Whitby-Oshawa, Ont.)—not Ms. Aglukkaq—to inform the provinces and territories in 2011 of changes to the Canada Health Transfer that are projected to see the federal government transfer some $36-billion less in healthcare funding to the provinces over the next decade.
“They seem to have been hands off for quite a few years. If they’re getting more hands on, that’s an encouraging sign,” Dr. Francescutti said. “We’re cautiously optimistic. I don’t know what the official honeymoon period is for a minister, but I’m sure she’s coming to the end of hers and we’re expecting to see some action on these portfolios.”
Canadian Nurses Association president Barb Mildon, also in attendance at the CMA general council, was particularly impressed with the minister’s consultative approach. Following Ms. Ambrose’s address, Dr. Mildon said that she and the minister had the opportunity to discuss Bill C-65, which is intended to clarify the rules for establishing supervised injection sites for intravenous drug users in Canada.
Former health minister Aglukkaq had stated that the federal government would consider a range of factors, including opposition from communities and police departments, prior to sanctioning any safe injection sites under the proposed legislation.
“We discussed that in some detail with her and she was particularly curious about what we believe is problematic with that [bill], and we really came back to the need to clarify how a community decides or not that it will accommodate a supervised injection site,” she explained. “We believe we’re seeing a minister put her own stamp on this new office.”
However, it remains unclear from Ms. Ambrose’s Oct. 3 announcement regarding changes to the federal Special Access Program whether she will take the CNA’s position on safe injection sites into account.
“Our government understands that dangerous drugs like heroin have a horrible impact on Canadian families and their communities. We will continue to support drug treatment and recovery programs that work to get Canadians off drugs in a safe way,” she said last week.
First elected to Parliament in 2004, Ms. Ambrose has held several Cabinet portfolios since the Conservatives formed government in 2006, including Environment, Labour, Western Economic Diversification, Labour, Status of Women, and Public Works and Government Services.
Her ministerial career got off to a rocky start on the Environment file and she was shuffled out within her first year on the file, but Michele Austin, a former chief of staff to Ms. Ambrose during her tenure at Public Works, said her former boss re-established herself as “a fixer” and “policy wonk” at the Cabinet table.
Ms. Austin said that the Prime Minister trusts Ms. Ambrose to clean up files where the government is seen as particularly weak, as he did when he appointed her as Minister of Public Works and Government Services in 2010.
“She was asked to essentially fix the mess Christian Paradis had left in terms of patronage-like old-school procurement. She took that on with a vengeance,” Ms. Austin recalled, citing the comparatively transparent National Ship Procurement Strategy as an example where Ms. Ambrose successfully took on a difficult file.
“She’s going to build a stronger coalition around the Health file. The Harper government has been seen as relatively cold towards the provinces and unwilling to sit down with stakeholders to discuss issues,” Ms. Austin said. “Ambrose is perfectly happy to do that, and do it in a managed way.… She will meet with people and discuss health policy.”
Even NDP MP and deputy leader Libby Davies (Vancouver East, B.C.), her party’s health critic, spoke favourably of Ms. Ambrose’s professionalism.
Ms. Davies had been critical of Ms. Ambrose’s decision last fall to vote in favour of Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth’s (Kitchener Centre, Ont.) motion to debate when human life begins. At the time, Ms. Ambrose was minister for the Status of Women and the motion would have effectively reopened the abortion debate in Canada. The motion did not pass, but female opposition MPs harshly criticized her for supporting the effort.
“I’m really hoping that she’ll pay much greater attention to this file than we’ve seen with previous ministers,” said Ms. Davies, who described her counterpart as “a competent minister.”
But with the Canada Health Accord set to expire next year with very little federal action outside of the restructured Canada Health Transfer, Ms. Ambrose may be on the receiving end of sharp criticisms from across the aisle in the months ahead.
“The elephant in the room is the Health Accords. They’re going to come due at the end of March and there’s no sign from the government that they’re going to renew the Health Accords,” Ms. Davies said. “The fact is, the federal government has to be at the table and they have to demonstrate leadership.”
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: CHRIS PLECASH
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